Underlining that in India reformers were “opportunistic reformers,” Chidambaram said that the challenge was to be able to identify the opportunity and push the reforms process forward.

Reacting to Chidambaram’s observation, Shourie replied by saying: “The book has very few postscripts which suggest that most of the reforms suggested have actually not happened and this leads me to say that very few people have the power to seize the opportunity but many have the power to stop.” He emphasized the role of the Prime Minister in being the prime mover of the reform process.

Suggesting the one big idea of reform, Shekhar Gupta highlighted the need to provide a level of dignity to the larger section of the society, which is seeking not only bijli, sadak and pani, but also padhai and rozgar.

In a rare public display of diametrically opposite views coming from two people in the same government, Panchayati Raj Minister Mani Shankar Aiyer, in the audience, was acidic: “Where is the discussion? All panelists have only one view. There is an India outside these views.” According to him, the need was to end this “obscenity” of celebrating India’s billionaires and look at the huge, invisible India that lived in poverty which has not changed from the pre-reform era. He said that the Centre wasn’t decentralising enough to empower the Panchayats.

To which Chidambaram replied saying that the quality of governance at even the state level, leave alone Panchayats, was “depressingly lower” than at the Centre.

Roy argued that no politics can bring change and put his faith in the “people of India” and private enterprise.

... contd.